“Thanksgiving again,” he thought as he looked out the window at the late afternoon sun filtering through the orange-yellow maple at the back of the house. “And I haven’t really come that far from the young man who believed he could be different and make a difference. Seems I still always know what to do, but I’m never quite sure how to do it, or to make sure it counts.”
This truth about himself and what he now referred to as his “so-called calling” came home to him the next day. A day in which he almost did lose his soul, permanently.
This particular challenge to his self image came as a result of a column he had written for the Ridgewood Advocate, the local weekly, which, aside from being dominated by a badly laid-out full centre-page spread featuring just about every store in the homely little Ridegwood Mall, nearly always played Father Pat’s Let’s Be Blunt column stacked neatly below the self-serving weekly MP’s Report from the strange young man who now represented the riding in the federal parliament.
Father Pat had invented the column as a sort of outlet or platform to sermonize to a wider audience on contemporary national as well as local issues, and occasionally to do a gentle expose on practices he considered harmful or unjust. When the column named names, this lead to the so-named individual being what was locally referred to as blunted. Several of Father Pat’s tougher or more outspoken columns were reprinted, thanks to Deirdre Donaldson, in the Toronto Record. This week’s effort was to receive notoriety in a less routine way.
This was the five-hundred word piece that greeted the quiet burghers of Ridegwood when they picked up the Advocate that sunny fall afternoon.
CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOMOSEXUALS?
by Father Pat Cheyne, Rector,
St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church, Ridgewood
When I was a young priest in my first parish, an older man who occasionally came to church befriended me. He was of special interest to me as a film cameraman and reporter who did stories for the regional television station, and he was willing to teach me how to do television reports.
In fact, he took me on a few shoots, as he called them. We’d go to a fall fair or to a mall opening and he’d film silent footage on his old spring-wound Bell and Howell camera. Then we’d go to the station, “soup” the film, and after watching the raw footage, decide how it would be put together to make a story. I was a better writer than he and wrote the scripts that accompanied the filmed items. I learned about a fascinating new communications medium and he got a free writer. We became friends and sometimes enjoyed a beer after putting to bed our little reports.
After a few beers on one of these occasions, I was surprised to find him looking intently at me and, to my consternation, asking me if I would like to go with him to the local Maple Leaf Steam Bath. This establishment, on a dingy side street, was reputed to be a hangout for “queers,” as gays were then called. I said no, but he persisted, then in a gushing confession, told me he was a homosexual and was in love with me.
I felt a mixture of pity and revulsion. I admit that in those days the roots and realities of homosexuality were little understood, let alone tolerated. So this reaction, even for a priest, was probably typical. Equally typical was how I dealt with what was for him a difficult admission, an even more difficult attempt to try and seduce me. I bolted from his company without even saying good-bye and never saw him again.
I am ashamed of my behaviour to this day. But I am even more ashamed that thirty years later the same treatment is being meted out to homosexuals — even if they are themselves priests. In my own diocese, my bishop, following a lengthy “trial” stripped Father John Goodfellow of his parish for making the same mistake my friend did years ago — admitting he was gay.
And how do we generally treat homosexuals in our workplaces, in our churches, in our communities? Some of us know that it is still damaging to even talk about homosexuals or to admit you know one or see one socially.
What a waste! What a shame! It is we who are to be pitied.
Father Pat had written this article the week before, when news came out about John Goodfellow’s punishment. He knew Goodfellow and was genuinely angered by his plight and his church’s intolerance. His practice was to always personalize his column and his own true story seemed a powerful way to make what he felt was an important point. But it was about to explode in his face.
His brother, Peter, was the first to phone: “I just got a call from a supplier in your town, Pat, and he tells me that you wrote a piece in the local rag admitting you were a homosexual. Is this true?” Clearly another trial had begun. He continued before Father Pat had a chance to reply. “Well this time you’ve gone too far. You have really embarrassed me and the family, Pat. I called Belle. She’s in shock. And your poor wife. I can’t imagine why you’ve done this to us.”
There was no dealing with him. The second call really gave him an even harder kick and he started to realize the monster he had created. It was from Deirdre.
“Pat, are you sitting down? Guess what the gossip is in the newsroom today?” she asked with a lot less humour than usual. “Well, it’s that your bishop has another homosexual clergyman who is going to get the full court treatment. And rumour has it it’s a suburban priest who wrote a confession in a local paper. Wouldn’t be you, would it? You are the only suburban priest I know who has a column.”
“Bloody hell,” Father Pat said under his breath. “I almost wish it was true, then it would be a battle worth fighting. Oh my God!”
“What do you mean, Pat. Did you write the piece or not? If we’re going to do anything, I have to know.”
“There is a piece and it’s in today. But it’s about intolerance and an incident years ago in which I treated a gay badly. He confessed he was gay to me; it’s not my confession. Oh, it’s complicated — I’ll fax you the column if you promise to stand by the machine, then we can talk.”
“OK, OK. But this does sound like chapter two of your church’s disgusting witch hunt. Listen, I think it’s all too much. Don’t worry, they won’t get away with this. I’ll call you right back.”
The phone didn’t stop ringing that morning. The head of his vestry committee phoned in a huff to tell him he’d called the bishop personally and sent him this “obscene” article. Mr. Greenwald, the bank manager who had picked him up the year before near the Frame’s farm during the Paddy- and-the-dump caper phoned, saying he couldn’t resist saying that now he really knew that Father Pat was as he termed it an original and hung up.
The pieces were falling into place. Deirdre phoned with some quiet encouragement. A couple of very long silences on this call didn’t reassure Father Pat. Finally the Gay Rights League phoned to tell him one of their members in Ridgewood had sent them the article and asked Father Pat if they could reprint it in their weekly publication. “Let us know if we can help Pat,” an friendly young male voice said. “You’ve really done something wonderful for the movement!”
Worst of all John Goodfellow called and offered his personal condolences. He’d heard from the alliance about the article and said he understood “what you’re going through.”
Brenda got a call from her triumphant sister-in-law, Belle, who felt that finally Pat would be put in his place.
“She told me that you had damaged the reputation of the Cheyne’s and had to answer to the family,” Brenda reported to a now exhausted Father Pat. “She said she felt really sorry for me, and that if there was anything they could do and so on.” Brenda stood at the door to his study recounting the conversation.
“That woman really can only think of herself. I just said, ’Belle, your concern for Pat is well known and I’m sure he appreciates it.’ But I wish you’d told me you were writing this, Pat. What am I going to say to the gardening club tomorrow? They’ve probably all read it.”
Brenda’s gardening club isn’t quite my chief concern, Father Pat thought. But he tried to be diplomatic.
“Brenda, simply ask people to read the article and see what it actually says.
While it’s sympathetic to gays, nowhere does it say I’m gay,” he said as firmly as he could. Then, under his breath. “I almost wish I were.”
“What was that?” Brenda turned back on her way down the stairs.
“Nothing. I just said I wish it hadn’t happened this way.”
“I do too. I really do. This is … very, very difficult,” she said with some finality.
Luckily it was only Tuesday — the Advocate had come out early for a change since it often only appeared Thursdays — leaving almost a week before he had to face all his parishioners. Almost a week to see how he could sort this out without backing down from his beliefs. Deirdre could really do nothing unless he became a real victim of injustice as Goodfellow had. He would just as soon not loose his parish and his livelihood to prove a point, but instinctively he knew he might have to.
Bishop Feld was a florid sixty-year-old who prided himself on his mannerisms, which included pulling demonstratively on his impeccable French cuffs, from time to time, and ostentatiously consulting his gold Rolex watch, “gift from a Rothschild when I was on an ecumenical tour in France,” as he liked to tell guests in his ornate office resplendent with photos of himself posed with various church leaders including two popes, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the current prime minister. This celebration of fame was really a wall of shame, Father Pat thought.
“We really cannot abide young men like Goodfellow provoking not just me but the whole church establishment and his parishioners,” Feld started right in when Father Pat sat down for his hastily arranged official dressing down. “Now if he’d kept it quiet, he might still be there. No fuss. No black eye for the church. No stain, if you see what I mean.” He flicked a speck of dust from his cuff. “Now your writing has stirred this putrid cauldron again — aside from the indisputable fact that you directly and publicly challenged my authority. You know that you are well down the ladder of an ecclesiastical hierarchy established by Christ himself.”
How true to form. How true to all I’ve found repugnant about the church for thirty years, Father Pat thought. The accusations continued to fall from the bishop’s thin lips, which started to show a buildup of spittle at the corners as Father Pat watched, fascinated.
“Now, this writing of yours, this public confession, if I could call it that,” and he opened a red manila folder that seemed to Father Pat to have quite a bit of correspondence in it and grandly pulled out the faxed article. It was covered with red circles and scratches in the margins. “I realized after I read it that of course you did not allow yourself to be led astray by this homo-sexual,” Feld puckered his lips as he pronounced the one offending word as if it were two, and as if he had just swallowed something very distasteful indeed. Then realizing he was about to drool he pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his mouth discreetly.
“But it does raise … questions. Legitimate ones. Particularly in the light of all the fracas we’ve had over the Goodfellow problem. Now I’ve had four calls from parishioners. Four. Not many. But four too many in my view. One from someone in your local bank. Someone to be reckoned with if I may say.
“They simply want to be reassured that you are not … of that persuasion. Well, I think you understand. So, I’ve prepared this letter. For my reassurance only, you understand. It will never see the light of day — unless needed. And I am willing — in generosity — to overlook your challenge to my authority. But at least I would be reassured on the more important point. And if I am, I daresay I can reassure your leading parishioners, who can reassure … well, I’m sure you see where this is leading.”
With that, and to Father Pat’s growing amazement, the bishop produced from his folder a carefully typed document. It read:
A STATEMENT FROM FATHER PATRICK CHEYNE
Rector, St. Bartholomew’s, Ridgewood, Ontario Dated, Tuesday, October 8, 1991
While defending the right of any man to his or her sexual preference and mindful of Christian teachings on the subject of marriage and the bearing of children and of the church’s policy which does not permit open expression of homosexuality, I, Patrick Cheyne of the Parish of Ridgewood have not been nor do I have any intention of being openly homosexual, or have, or have any intention of having a man as a lover.
I fully realize that public scrutiny of such actions can cause disgrace to the church and bring the legitimate concern, disfavour and disapprobation of those Christians who look to me for care and spiritual guidance as an ordained priest.
(signed)
Rev. P. Cheyne
Witnessed
R.E.L. Feld, Bishop, Diocese of Toronto
Father Pat read the document twice, holding it in both hands on the edge of the huge desk. He swallowed hard.
“You see, my dear Father Pat, that while you know what you do in private is between you and God, your public expression regarding homosexuality puts me in a most awkward position given our policies, as you well know.” The Bishop was firmly on shaky ground.
“Your Grace, I simply can’t accept this,” Father Pat was thoroughly discombobulated. “Beyond the first phrase, it simply says to me that nobody in this modern Christian age can accept homosexuality and that a few bigots and homophobes can dictate policy to the church when there are probably thousands of homosexuals in parishes all over the place we are forcing underground and into covert, even dangerous relationships. This is part of what appears to be the church legislating hypocrisy.” He felt good about the last line. It sort of summed it up.
Father Pat’s short outburst prompted nervous and effusive snapping of the gold stretch bracelet on the famous Rolex. The good bishop averted the priest’s gaze and concentrated on his watch.
“My dear man, this is not a time for grand-standing.” Again as two words. For emphasis. “It is a time to combine the practical with the biblical, if I may say. We had a problem with Goodfellow, we resolved it and we will put his parish on a sound financial footing once again. Of that I am sure. Now, as to St. Bart’s …”
Father Pat could take this particular insinuation no longer. “I really think that four calls about an article articulating a Christian view on discrimination hardly mean that St. Bart’s is about to go down the drain … with due …” He could hardly get the word out.
“Due respect indeed. That is the point, if I may say. And I intend to exact that respect from you. We have had a history of, what could I say, unorthodox behaviour from you, my good man. Need I say more?” He finally engaged Father Pat with his greying eyes.
“Yes, your grace. I quite understand. I will pray about this and get back to you,” Father Pat carefully folded his recantation, put it in his inside pocket and, feeling like Martin Luther, withdrew through the huge oak door without so much as a bow to his formidable superior. He headed straight for the nearest phone booth and dialed the familiar Toronto Record number. Deirdre answered after several tries.
“Deirdre, I’ve just been to purgatory with the Bishop. You were right. They want to nail me. He presented a recantation to me all typed up to sign. Like I have never been and never will be a homosexual. I walked out. Please meet me.” It all came out in an untidy rush.
“I presume you aren’t a homosexual — are you?” This, on the phone, from someone he considered his best friend, caught him totally by surprise.
“Deirdre, give me a break. What’s that got to do with it. What if I was? Anyway, can we talk or not?”
“You don’t understand. You know you are important to me. Never mind. Anyway. Yes. I suppose so. Meet me at Bradley’s. Ten minutes.” Click.
Father Pat had seldom entered Bradley’s, his great urban oasis of calm, peace and respite, with such trepidation. However, settled into a back booth and cradling a glass of red wine instead of the usual scotch, he took a deep breath and contemplated not his fate but his next steps. This was clearly to be a real campaign like he had never fought before because this time, however uncomfortable it might have been, it was his life on the line. As his mind
raced to plan the four remaining days before he had to face his parishioners, Deirdre came sliding in beside him. He helped her out of her huge cloth coat and as he put it around her shoulder, she gave him a welcome kiss on the cheek.
“There, feel better?” she said. “Sometimes I wonder, Pat. As if I didn’t have a passing interest in your heterosexuality!” and she looked intently at him. “Anyway. What is going on?”
He unburdened himself of everything, the whole story. As he had for different reasons with other stories so many times before. She was definitely the best listener, only asking questions to clarify the narrative. He elaborated on Jim, the cameraman. The way he had reached out physically, grabbed his hand and held it when he confessed his love. The moment Pat realized he could not go through with it and had to reject him, quickly. It was not quite as simple as the curt narrative in the Advocate. It was complicated. Like life when you don’t want to hurt someone who has been good to you. Pat had to reject the cameraman at that moment. Yet he remained unsure to this day what might have happened had he gone to the steam bath. Then the horrid little drama at the Diocesan office with the Bishop. The attempt at a forced recantation. His career-threatening walkout. Deirdre was calm, almost serene as his narrative tumbled out.
“Seems to me that so far you have done the right thing. Why are you so upset? The bishop is an ass.” she said.
“But I’m nowhere, don’t you see. I’m only sticking up for tolerance, and I’m going to be nailed morally for that. If I was really sticking up for gays, then it would be worth the fight. As it is, it’s an empty, meaningless battle. I don’t know what to do. What’s the point of having the bishop tell my parishioners I’m not gay. Does that mean I can’t openly support their cause? He’s going to shut me up and I can’t take that.”
“Then don’t let him,” Deirdre’s logic was obvious. “Keep fighting for tolerance. Call his bluff. But explain it to your parish. Surely they assume you are not gay. Or does it matter?” She found herself caught in the same conundrum. “In any case, it’s none of their business. Anyhow, what does Brenda think?”
The Father Pat Stories Page 11
